local forests, local people, local decisions

Is B.C. ready for the next wildfires?

November 15, 2017

By Tracy Sherlock

National Observer

November 14, 2017

The Province of British Columbia apparently knew what to do to lessen the intensity of wildfires by 2017. The reports they’d commissioned in 2003, after the catastrophic Kelowna wildfires, were explicit, but the recommendations were costly….The government followed the suggestions, but only on about a tenth of the area in B.C. which the report had recommended should receive fire-prevention treatment. Now, B.C.’s forests minister Doug Donaldson is determined to do better, he told National Observer in an interview last week. But with a budget of $140 million to spend over the next three years on fire prevention in the province, some say the money won’t be enough to protect B.C’s communities from the next big burn. Lori Daniels, a forest ecology professor at the University of British Columbia, is one of those who is skeptical the money will be close to enough.